Nut & Neck Finishing

[bbl4ck]

I have a couple questions regarding fixing up my nut & neck...

I sent off my neck almost 3 months ago to Bryan England's Custom Inlay for inlay work.  I got it back last week and was a bit surprised that I must now do some finishing work. 
It was returned with my nut taped to the fingerboard and the fingerboard in a far less lustrous condition than it was when I shipped it to them.
I have never replaced a nut and never really paid much attention to how they were installed.  I just thought there was a groove that the nut fit into.
It appears on my neck there is just a slightly scalloped out channel that the nut sits in.

My questions are these:

1)  Is reinstalling the nut merely a matter of slapping on some wood glue, clamping the nut back into position and letting it dry thoroughly?  It doesn't seem like there could be much more to it... 

2)  I want to get my fingerboard back to the smooth, polished, shinny condition it was before the inlay work.  Is this simply done by taping off my frets and polishing the fingerboard with steel wool?
Will the steel wool do any damage to the inlay material?  Is it better to use a synthetic polishing material over steel wool considering the inlay work?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!  The scratches on the fingerboard were hard to capture in pics, but just believe me that the fingerboard looks nothing like it previously did.   

Thanks for your time &  :rock-on:

 

[Superbeast520]

Im sorry to hear that Black Dog, certainly sounds like less than professional standards for sure.....I woulda thought putting the nut back on was part of the job...hmmm,... but just my opinion. Then again it sounds like a big job to begin with, so I can't comment with experience.

But it does look very nice!!! :icon_thumright:

Do not glue the nut in with a really agressive glue, you'll want to be able to replace it in the future if necessary without breaking the surrounding wood when it gets removed.

 I used wood glue but I diluted it a tad. I have used wood glue straight before but when I changed nuts I found I had to chip out the old one and it wasn't as clean a break as I would have liked, ( though this is quite common ) .....however if your nut groove isn't as flush as it was before they did their handy work you may want the added strength of straight wood glue.

Im sure others will chime in and give their professional advice ......

 

[tfarny]

Nut - no biggie, drop of superglue and finger pressure for a few minutes, then let it sit overnight. Just make sure both contact surfaces are real clean and try to align it perfectly. You really just want to hold it in place, not permanently affix it to the board. Take you five minutes.
Fingerboard - seems like you need to sand out those scratches, that's well above my pay grade. Best of luck. Inlays look fantastic though.

 

[koshersteel]

that job does seema tad incomplete. Here is what I would do...

take a razor blade (the straight kind, preferably with a rolled over edge on one side) and with a fast light scraping motion move it inbetween each fret , swapping out blades as they get dull. Next, after taping off all the electronics (so the magnets don't attract stray fibers) buff the board and frets with a 000 steel wool (oil free). You may even want to start with a slightly coarser grade of steel wool before moving up to 000. Finally, give the board a good application of lemon oil (or your preferred fretboard conditioner). If you've got the time I might even apply some lemon oil, let it soak in for a week or two, and then go through the above procedure.

were the frets removed and then reinstalled after the inlay was done? The scratches in some of the photos look so bad that a level, crown and polish may be needed. This is all intermediate to advanced stuff so if you're not comfortable doing it then take it to a luthier you trust. As for the nut, I'd recommend using watered down Titebond.

 

[-CB-]

Here's the thing -

DO NOT USE SUPERGLUE

Use regular ol' wood glue.  You want to be able to just knock that nut off when it needs replacing.  Super glue will tear out wood along with the nut.  Wood glue is soluble in water, cleans up nice if any ooze is present.  You only need one drop of glue, tiny... smeared a little.  Check the fit of the nut, with strings on.  Then slack off the strings, put the drop of glue on the bottom, smear a little and set it in place.  Tighten the strings and there's your clamp.

As for the fretboard - clean out the dust and crap next to the frets themselves.  Use this stuff... "fret doctor"
http://www.beafifer.com/boredoctor.htm
You can make your own fret doctor by thinning pure tung oil with citrus solvent, using about 1 part tung to 4 parts solvent.  You really dont need to go whole hog with the steel wool.  It should be fine with just some conditioner on it.... and you can always do the steel wool "if needed/as needed" after the conditioner.  What you're seeing is the dust from filing down the inlay and smoothing it up - its inevitable. 

BTW, it was an almost sure thing to have the nut fall off - they are NOT held in all that well, and he needed to get that inlay right up to the slot for the nut.  I have bought instruments where the nut has fallen off - literally - at string change time.  Remember, wood glue, one drop.

Go to www.frets.com for complete nut attachment write ups by Frank Ford (you'll have to look thru a few articles in the luthier section)

 

[tfarny]

I've used superglue a few times and never torn out any wood when removing.

 

[bbl4ck]

Hey,
Thanks for the tips guys!  :headbang1:
I already have a bottle of Fret Doctor; it's good stuff...
I gave it a bath in the stuff before leaving for work today.  I will recoat when I get home and let sit overnight.
I already have some wood glue and my super glue is dried up.  So, I will give the wood glue a try.
I am already going to take it in to my luthier for a set-up.  I think I will just let him do the polishing.
This is all for my Warmoth V [first build] and I will try to post some pics this weekend. 

Thanks again &  :rock-on:

 

[-CB-]

I've used superglue a few times and never torn out any wood when removing.

Try removing a super-glued in "warmoth installed" nut... jeeze-o-pete what a pita.
I've had a Guild and a Tacoma that had super glued in nuts... that convinced me.  I had to remove a cracked Warmoth nut... that set my conviction into doctine - no superglue.  Especially since regular ol' yellow wood glue works just fine.  Maybe its too slow to set up in a production environment?

 

[Superbeast520]

I have to second the "No" super glue thing, I glued a nut with super glue... (thinking I won't be replacing this anytime soon) ...to the top of the neck (as on the neck above) on a carvin kit I built, and when I went to remove it later, the wood under the bottom of the nut tore out and left a not so nice little divit, that made putting in the next one a pain in the arse...the fretboard was ebony so it didn't stick there quite as bad, but in the above case it could possibly rip out the inlay as its exposed at the end of the fretboard, super glue can be really aggressive as it fills the wood grain and really penetrates.

 

[tfarny]

Wow - I've taken off at least two warmoth superglued nuts with no problems. Maybe I got lucky.

 

[jay4321]

It looks look a cool inlay, but their standards leave a lot to be desired if that's how they returned it to you.

Funny that I had just emailed him last week about replacing some clay dots... turned out to be too much money to make it worth doing, but I was thinking about using him for something in the future. I don't have any experience with custom inlays but I can't see how their customers would find that acceptable, particularly for what I imagine you paid for that job.

Looking forward to seeing the finished project!

 

[jay4321]

Hey since you need a nut, maybe consider the Buzz Feiten thing?

I've got 3x Warmoth Earvana nuts in my guitars but have played an angled headstock LP with the Buzz recentlty, and it was very cool. Albiet a bit overpriced

 

[Superbeast520]

Since were talking nut install I thought I would throw up this link by Stew Mac that details nut making and installation as it seems to pertain....they recommend tight bond glue...for info purposes....as always theres more than one way to skin a cat....so no sweat on any accounts.... :icon_thumright:

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Nuts,_saddles/a-nuts.html    .....Making a nut step by step....


http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Nuts,_saddles/i-5350.html    .....Nut making and setup....

 

[-CB-]

Tightbond is essentially a form a yellow wood glue.

 

[bbl4ck]

Hey since you need a nut, maybe consider the Buzz Feiten thing?

I've got 3x Warmoth Earvana nuts in my guitars but have played an angled headstock LP with the Buzz recentlty, and it was very cool. Albiet a bit overpriced

The Buzz Feiten sounds really cool and I was diggin' it until I saw the $139.00 suggested price tag.    That quite an expensive nut.
So, did you really notice anything spectacular when you were playing this guitar that would justify this much $$$ for a nut  ???

Since were talking nut install I thought I would throw up this link by Stew Mac that details nut making and installation as it seems to pertain....they recommend tight bond glue...for info purposes....as always theres more than one way to skin a cat....so no sweat on any accounts.... :icon_thumright:

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Nuts,_saddles/a-nuts.html    .....Making a nut step by step....


http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Nuts,_saddles/i-5350.html    .....Nut making and setup....

Thanks for the links to Stewmac info!  That really reassures me that the nut install is really no big woop...
:rock-on: